All true. Again, I have more than a passing familiarity with such things.Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer
When your people are well trained and the equipment is working properly the task at hand is difficult enough. When things have sunk to the apparent level of incompetency it may be insurmountable.
We may lose and we may win, but we will never be here again.......
Naval things are a hobby. I did take an elective in Military History from an interesting guy. He was a major general and PhD. Head of the Hungarian military academy and part of the 1956 rebellion. Ending up as a history prof at my university and his course was a bear to get into. I wrote a long term paper on the pre-WWII naval limitation treaties and their implications and analogy to nuclear disarmanent. He gave me an A and said it was an excellent essay.
We read lots of theory as well as just battles and equipment. Kind of like our mindset vs just 9 vs 45. I was really proud of the paper and since then kept an interest in reading about naval issues. They are a crucial part of being a truly educated adult in understanding today's geopolitical world.
My bookshelves are full of them - next to the gun books, cheese books and sushi/Japanese food books. Just bought one on the Latin American Dreadnaught arms race in the early 1900s. That's getting into the weeds.
This applies not just to Naval activities. All branches/disciplines of the Military have lost the edge or fallen behind near-peer opposition. China dominates on EW and is changing their TTP faster than we can adapt. The Russians (let's call them what they are "the Soviets") have changed their mindset and their TTP and, with significant advances in material sciences have surpassed up in critical areas of surface warfare.
Our focus on counter-insurgency has lead us to neglect areas such as combined arms warfare (Brigade and above), contested air-superiority, and reduced signal environments. The next war will be like WWII not like GWOT.
There was a war game (Red vs. Blue) back in the early ‘80s. The officers running Blue were a lot senior to the ones running Red. Out of the gate, Red sank four Blue carriers. No surprise, the rules were changed.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
Read up on the 2002 millunium challenge war games......
That was something! General Van Riper was a serious individual. I remember when he was a light bird, and the CO of 2/7 at Stumps. He came out and watched a CAX we did, and was sharp as a razor with his input. Great officer, I am surprised he did not make Commandant after General Gray.
Because it obviously makes sense to just say "OK, fuck it, we're screwed" and go home...?
And IIRC, it wasn't an admiral, it was a USMC Colonel, and he "won" by having the Iranian "navy" swarm the US in a bazillion bass boats, or whatever the Persian Gulf equivalent is.
Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
Glenn Reynolds
The thread presents serious problems of a severe nature about our Navy's capability. If a panel of Admirals were to read and discuss the thread, would its members compare posters with the man in the street and label comments as simplistic? Or posing the question another way, does the Navy's leadership recognize issues stated here?
I thought the solution they came up with to "correct the errors" was disallowing the red team from using that tactic.
It is no time for complacency when an idiotic chinese "Rear Admiral" (Lou Yuan) talks about sinking two USN super carriers, just to "see how frightened America is"....
Sure he is just a big mouth, but nevertheless I would not want to go unprepared into the South China Sea.
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